DOWNLOAD LUẬN VĂN A STUDY ON SOME POSSIBLE EFFECTIVE PRE-READING ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE READING SKILLS FOR THE 2ND -YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT THE MILITARY SCIENCE ACADEMY

1 PART A: INTRODUCTION I Rationale In many second or foreign language teaching situations, reading receives a special focus There are a number of reasons for this First, many foreign language students often have reading as one of their most important goals They want to be able to read for information and pleasure, for their career, and for study purposes In fact, in most EFL situations, the ability to read in a foreign language is all that students ever want to acquire Second, written texts serve various pedagogical purposes Extensive exposure to linguistically comprehensible written texts can enhance the process of language acquisition Good reading texts also provide good models for writing and provide opportunities to introduce new topics, to stimulate discussion and to study language Reading, then, is a skill which is highly valued by students and teachers alike In process of teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam in general, and at the Military Science Academy (MSA) in particular, reading has always been offered a great deal of attention both from the teachers and the students Like many others universities in Vietnam, English at the MSA is learnt and taught in non-native environment, therefore, reading is not only considered as a means to gain knowledge but also a means by which further study takes place In other words, learners “read to learn” (Burns, 1988:11) According to Carrel (1981:1), “for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language” This is especially true to the students at the MSA, where learners are mostly future interpreters, translators, or teachers of English in others Military Colleges whose desires are to be able to handle subjects related to written materials in English and to work with their English-speaking colleagues and partners It is essential for them to acquire the ability to read English effectively and efficiently However, despite the teachers’ and students’ effort, students still often claim to have a lot of difficulties in reading English textbooks or English materials, and therefore, they sometimes read them inefficiently For the second-year students of English, although they have been learning English for at least several years, it is still often difficult for them to understand a text or a passage in English, since they still lack vocabulary, grammar, reading skills and poor background Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com knowledge Besides, the teachers sometimes have to face with difficulties in dealing with the students’ learning demand and newly introduced sources of materials In addition, teaching methods and teaching techniques in general, are still below the international standard of education To find out the areas of students’ difficulty at the MSA and the causes of their unsuccessful reading comprehension is necessary Therefore, these reasons have inspired the writing of A Study on some possible effective pre-reading activities to improve reading skills for the 2nd -year English Majors at the Military Science Academy It is hoped that the study will make some contributions to improve the learning of English in general, and the learning of reading in particular among the nd-year English majors at the MSA The author also hopes that it will be possible to make suggestions for the teachers to improve the situation of teaching and learning reading at the MSA II Aims of the study The main purposes of the study are to investigate pre-reading techniques employed by the teachers of English at the MSA, and to give a suggestion of some possible prereading activities that can be applied to teach the text book More Reading Power to the second-year students of English at the MSA To achieve these purposes, the study will focus on the following aims: * To understand better and more fully the notions of reading and reading comprehension, etc * To investigate the teachers’ and students’ attitude towards the pre- reading techniques * To examine the students’ preference for pre-reading techniques * To suggest some possible pre-reading activities which are thought to be effective for teaching reading to the 2nd-year students at the MSA III Scope of the study To improve reading skill for students of English at the MSA, the teachers can make use of various techniques and number of things should be done However, in this study, the author only intends to overview a brief of current situation of teaching and learning reading of the 2nd-year students of English at the MSA, and to suggest some possible activities that can be applied in the Pre-reading stage in order to motivate students in reading lesson as well as help them to become good and effective readers IV Methods of the study The study was carried out on the basis of qualitative research method including questionnaires and class observation Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com Questionnaires are designed as a mean to make the researcher’s evaluation more objective The questionnaires are given to the second-year students and the teachers of English at the MSA with the hope to find out their attitudes towards pre-reading techniques and their comments and suggestions for these activities Data were collected through the survey questionnaires and class observation Analyzing statistics from the survey questionnaire on reading activities conducted with the cooperation of the both teachers and students at the MSA All comments, remarks, recommendation assumptions, and conclusion provided in the study based on the data analysis Besides, more information needed for the study is gathered through other methods such as class observations, informal interviews, and discussions with the teachers and students at the MSA V Significance of the study The study highlights the importance of motivation to the reading skills in general and to the pre-reading stage in particular Moreover, the findings of the study are thought to be useful for teachers of English to be aware of the essential role of the pre-reading activities to the students’ motivation in reading lessons VI Design of the study The study is composed of three parts: Part A-Introduction provides rationale, the aims, scope, methods, and design of the study Part B-Development consists of three chapters: Chapter 1-Literature review, conceptualizes the study’s theoretical background, presents the concepts relevant to the topic of the thesis: reading and reading comprehension, classification of reading, role of reading in foreign language learning, motivation and factors in teaching and learning reading Chapter one will be closed with the importance of the Pre-reading activities in a reading lesson Chapter 2-The study, presents the methodology used in the study It also shows the detailed results of the survey and covers a comprehensive analysis on the data collected form questionnaires and class observations Chapter 3-offers some major findings and suggestions of some possible Prereading activities which are thought to be helpful for teaching reading to the nd-year students of English at the MSA Part C- Conclusion is a review of the study, future directions for further research and limitations of the study as well Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Introduction In this chapter, the author mainly concerns with reviewing the notions of reading and reading comprehension The review includes the definitions of each notion and followed by the classification of reading, the importance of reading in foreign language learning, theory of motivation and factors in teaching and learning reading Last but not least, the importance of the Pre-reading activities are also presented in this chapter as the main purpose of the research 1.2 Theoretical background of reading 1.2.1 Definitions of reading and reading comprehension 1.2.1.1 Definition of reading Reading is often referred to as the most important of the four language skills for EFL learners, as it enables students to gain exposure to the target language and receive valuable linguistic input to build up language proficiency (Erten & Razı, 2003) We can not be sure when reading activity begins, but we have to admit that reading is essential activity that provides a great contribution in obtaining knowledge It is obvious that in real life we usually spend much time reading all sorts of things like books, magazines, newspapers, novels, stories However, sometimes we read but we not understand what they mean, or can not understand the text we read In this case, it can not be called reading So what is reading? There have been numerous definitions of reading each of them is the reflection of its author’s view of the reading process Anderson (1999: 1) explains this very neatly as follows: “Reading is an active, fluent process which involves the reader and the reading material in building meaning Meaning does not reside on the printed page or occurs in reading, which combines the words on the printed page with the reader’s background knowledge and experiences.” According to Harmer (1989: 153), reading is a mechanical process that “eyes receive the message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the message” In his definition, Harmer focuses on both two actions dominated by the eyes and the brain as well as on the speed of the process “a reading text moves at a speed of the reader”, which means that the readers themselves decides how fast he wants to read the text Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com Sharing the same opinion, Smith (1985:102) defines “reading understands the author’s thought” He also added that “understanding print or even receiving communication can hardly be said to explain reading” The problem still remains how the reader understands the print or the message “It means that we-the reader-read the author’s mind not the author’s words” Roe, Stood and Burns (1987:2) describes reading in a more extensive way In their opinion, “reading is understanding written language”, “reading is a complex mental process”, “reading is thinking”, or “reading comprehension is reconstruction, interpretation and evaluation of what author of written content means by using knowledge gained from life experience.” Another definition of reading was offered by Allen and Valletta (1977: 249) In their opinion, “reading is a developmental process” We learn reading not only to know how to read, to master the symbols, the sound, the language, the grammar etc, that used in the text but also to understand the ideas, the information expressed in that text or to develop the ability of reconstructing its content using our own words One more researcher called Goodman (1971: 153) considers reading is “a psycholinguistic process by which the reader- a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display.” Reading involves a reader, a text, and a writer Reading skills are developed in an active process This process involves the surface representation encoded by a writer and ends with interpretation of the written text and interchanges between the writer and the reader (Goodman 1969 in Carrell 1988) If the writer is careless, the reader may not get the message If the writer makes demands that the reader cannot fulfill, the message will not be received, even though to another reader it might be clear If the reader is careless, reading will result in incomplete interpretation The reader tries to interpret the text through his/her own experiences, but they may differ from the writer’s experiences This explanation proves that reading is not just an active process, but also an interactive one Reading is closely linked with meaning For this reason, lack of shared assumptions presents the most difficult problem in reading To sum up, from all these opinions above, it is obvious that no definition can possibly capture all the ideas and features of what reading is Each linguist’s definition reflects what reading means as seen from his own point of view However, they all have some features in common, they share the same ideas that reading means we-the readers Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com read the author’s mind not author’s word, and that reading means comprehending written language and it employs a variety of skills In addition, they all concentrate on the nature of reading 1.2.1.2 Definition of reading comprehension In teaching and learning a foreign language in general and teaching reading in particular, reading comprehension plays an important part, it can be understood as the ability to draw attention to the required information from the text as efficiently as possible So what is reading comprehension? According to Richard and Thomas (1987: 9), “Reading comprehension is best described as an understanding between the author and the reader” This point of view concentrates on the reader’s understanding of the message based on the individual’s background knowledge They stated that “reading is much more than just pronouncing words correctly or simply knowing what the author intends: it is the process whereby the printed pages stimulate ideas, experiences and responses that are unique to an individual.” In his book, Swan (1975: 1) pointed out that “A student is good at comprehension we mean that he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the minimum of understanding” For Roe, Stood and Burns (1987: 9): Reading comprehension is reconstruction, interpretation, and evaluation of what author of written content means by using knowledge gained from life experience Study the nature of reading comprehension, Grilled (1981: 3) indicated that “Reading comprehension or understanding written text means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible” This means that the student can show his understanding by re-expressing the content of the text in many ways such as summarizing the text, answering questions etc From these theories above, it can be understood that reading for comprehension is the primary purpose for reading; raising students' awareness of main ideas in a text and exploring the organization of a text are essential for good comprehension It is the process in which the readers - as they read, can recognize the graphic form and understand the relation between the writing and the meaning It means that after reading, students can master grammar structures, words, pronunciation etc and can understand the content of the text and use it in their real life as effective as possible Furthermore, “reading without comprehension is the meaningless” (Karolin and Karin, 1988: 2) Reading means Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com comprehending written language so when understanding break down, reading actually does not occur 1.2.2 Classification of reading 1.2.2.1 According to manner According to Doff (1988), reading is divided into two main types: reading aloud and silent reading * Reading aloud involves “looking at the text, understanding it and also saying it” (Doff: 70) and he considers reading aloud as a way to convey necessary information to someone else Very few people are required to read aloud as a matter of daily routine The readers are asked to read the text so loudly that other people can hear it Reading aloud does not happen outside the classroom as Doff (1988: 67) said, “reading aloud is not an activity we engage in very often outside the classroom” Reading aloud has both advantages and disadvantages Natal (1966) sees reading aloud as an important aid for beginners to improve their pronunciation It helps students to make the connection between sounds and spelling of letters and words and also assists the teacher to check students’ pronunciation Moreover, it is a technique for him to keep the class under control, since when one student reads aloud, the others are asked to listen in case they may be required to continue the reading However, Greenwood (1985) criticizes this idea; he claims that students may unable to focus adequately on the text’s meaning when they highly concentrate on pronouncing the words His point of view implied that there are also some negative effects that should be taken into account in the process of teaching and learning that involves reading aloud First of all, when reading aloud, students only focus on the pronunciation not on the meaning of the text The second thing is that when students take turn to read a text aloud, only one student is active; the others will something else, since they not have to read In addition, this way of reading usually waste much time because students read in turn so they have to wait one after one It can be inferred that there is little value in reading aloud if we want to improve the readers’ reading skills Therefore, the teachers as educators should identify the level of their students and decide whether to apply reading aloud or not in teaching reading to their students * Silent reading is “the method we normally use with our native language and on the whole quickest and most efficient” Lewis (1985: 110) Sharing the same idea, Doff Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com (1988: 67) defined silent reading as followed: “silent reading involves looking at sentence and understanding the message it conveys, in other words making sense of a written text It does not normally involve saying the words we read nor even silently in our heads” Therefore, we can see that silent reading is an effective skill for reading comprehension since students not need to read all the words of a text, they can read at their own speed and in case they not understand a sentence they can go back to read again When reading silently, students not only obtain its main ideas in the shortest length of time but also deeply understand its details and can answer the questions as well To summarize, silent reading is one effective skill for reading process in general and reading comprehension in particular, since the teacher can check his or her students’ understanding easily and can adjust the reading materials and exercises to suit the students’ ability Therefore, it should be applied in teaching and learning a foreign language 1.2.2.2 According to purposes People not usually read unless they have a reason or a purpose for reading They always have a need of some kind that can be satisfied through reading In the case of an effective reader, his reason for reading will also determine his style of reading and the relevant reading skills to be used because the purpose could be very general when he reads for pleasure or escape On the other hand, it could be specific like looking up a telephone directory for someone’ phone number he can not use the same way of reading According to Nutgall (2000: 38), there are two main types of reading, namely, intensive and extensive readings, these are not just two contrasting ways of reading but an infinitive variety of interrelated strategies; both of them are complementary and necessary * Intensive reading (IR) The aim of intensive reading is to arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of the text not only of what it means but also of how the meaning is produced IR means reading short texts to extract specific information Its main concern is for detailed comprehension In IR, students normally work with short texts with close guidance from the teacher The aim of IR is to help students obtain detailed meaning from the context, to develop reading skills- such as identifying main ideas and recognizing text connectors- and to enhance vocabulary and grammar knowledge Nutgall’s opinion about this kind of reading is: “Intensive reading involves approaching the text under the close guidance of the teacher or under the guidance of task which forces the students to pay great attention Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com to the text” Nuttal (1982: 23) “Intensive reading”, from Francoise’s point of view, “means reading short texts to extract specific information This is an accuracy activity that involves reading for detailed” Francoise (1981: 41) It can be inferred that IR often refers to the careful reading of shorter, more difficult foreign language texts with the goal of complete and detailed understanding IR is also associated with the teaching of reading in terms of its component skills Texts are studied intensively in order to introduce and practice reading skills such as distinguishing the main idea of a text from the detail, finding pronoun referents, or guessing the meaning of unknown words * Extensive reading (ER) In everyday life, to read extensively means to read widely and in quantity In the early part of this century, extensive reading took on a special meaning in the context of teaching modern languages Some researchers such as Harold Palmer in Britain and Michael West in India worked out the theory and practice of extensive reading as an approach to foreign language teaching in general, and to the teaching of foreign language reading in particular Carrell and Carson (1997: 49,50) stated that “extensive reading generally involves rapid reading of large quantities of material or longer reading for general understanding, with the focus generally on the meaning of what is being read than on the language.” Although this definition provides an overview of ER, Davis (1995: 329) offers another description of ER from an English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom implementation perspective: “An extensive reading program is supplementary class library scheme, attached to an English course, in which pupils are given the time, encouragement, and materials to read pleasurably, at their own level, as many books as they can, without the pressures of testing or marks Thus, pupils are competing only against themselves, and it is up to the teacher to provide the motivation and monitoring to ensure that the maximum number of books is being read in the time available The watchwords are quantity and variety, rather than quality, so that books are selected for their attractiveness and relevance to the pupils’ lives, rather than for literary merit” According to Grellet (1981: 2) ER means “reading a longer text usually for one’s own pleasure This is a fluency activity, mainly involving general understanding” Sharing the same view, Hammer (1986: 497) claimed that: “Extensive reading would normally start with reading for the main ideas or for general information then for general comprehension Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 10 and finally, after much practice, for details comprehension” ER is generally associated with reading large amounts with the aim of getting an overall understanding of the material Readers are more concerned with the meaning of the text than the meaning of individual words or sentences In fact, most of ER is usually done silently and outside the classroom, it gives the students opportunities to use their knowledge of the target language for their own purposes Besides, it provides the valuable reinforcement of language items and structure already presented in the classroom, gives the students chance to update and enrich their language knowledge by reading the topics they like and read for enjoyment without consideration for pressure of time, intense concentration, and total comprehension ER therefore, is regarded as an effective way for the students to improve their language reading; it helps students enhance language learning in such areas as spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and text structure Besides, it gives students more positive attitude toward reading offers them greater enjoyment of reading, helps them to read with pleasure It is also considered as an advisable sort of work for the students to increase and improve their general knowledge of the world as well Basing on the purposes of reading, people may be skimming or scanning as they are reading extensively * Skimming According to Grellet (1981: 19) skimming appears when “we go through the reading material quickly in order to get its main points or the intention of the writer, but not to find the answer to specific questions” And Nuttall (1982: 36) also stated that “By skimming, we mean glancing rapidly through a text to determine whether a research paper is relevant to our own work or in order to keep ourselves superficially informed about matters that are not of great importance to us” In addition to the definitions of skimming, Wood (1990: 92) said that “When the reader looks at the content page of the book, or the chapter headings, sub headlines, etc This is sometimes called previewing Another example is when reader glances quickly through a newspaper to see the main items of the day are This will often mean just glancing at the headlines” That means when we quickly to get general impression to see whether the text is useful to us, it is not necessarily searching for a specific details and key words Skimming provides an overview of the text so it is beneficial to look at chapter/ section headings, summaries and opening paragraphs, Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 31 the teachers to use titles and subtitles before they read the text, may be because this one is boring and is not persuasive enough 100 75% 50% 40% 25% B1 B2 B3 B4 Chart 2b: The students’ preferences for teachers’ ways of introducing new vocabulary B1: by using synonyms, antonyms (75%) B2: by using definition or explanation (50%) B3: by using visual aids (40%) B4: by using games (25%) Look at the chart we can see that the biggest portion of the students (75%) would like their teachers to use synonyms or antonyms to explain the vocabulary of the text before reading, may be because they are confident with their vocabulary knowledge and are eager to revise the words they have already known and link them with the new ones through this activity Using definition or explanation is selected by half of the students under the survey (50%) It is evident that with clear definition or explanation of the words, motivation to read the text will be increased and understanding will not be hindered any more It is surprising that when dealing with new vocabulary only 40% of the students choose the games, may be at this stage their focus is mainly on the content of the text they are going to read Therefore, they want the teachers to carry out activities that connect with the vocabulary rather than enjoying games which they possibly thought a waste of time Using Pre-reading questions is very helpful because it enables students to predict the content of the text as well as increases their motivation A large number of the students (85%) are in favor of Who-questions as they can lead them to seek for certain information, which will make it easier for the students to read and comprehend the text Yes/ no questions are chosen by 20 students (25%) Only students (10%) like multiple-choice Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 32 questions It can be inferred that this type of questions is not easy to answer or may be they are sometimes reluctant to response to this question so many of them usually choose the answer randomly 2.5.1.3 Students’ comments on Pre-reading activities in the textbook Question was designed with the hope to find out students’ comments on the Prereading activities in their textbook (More Reading Power) 80 55% 50% 43.7% 20% 15% C D 0 A B E Chart 3: Students’ comments on Pre-reading activities in their textbook A boring (43.7%) B unsuitable for students’ needs (55%) C unable to motivate students (20%) D interesting (15%) E others (50%) From the chart we realize that almost the students in the study are not in favor of the pre-reading activities available in their books 40 students which accounts for (55%) think that the activities are not suitable for their needs Another 35 of them (43.7%) suppose that the activities are boring However, 16 students (20%) claim that they are unable to be motivated by the activities provided in the textbook and only 12 students (15%) even state that these activities are interesting May be because of these reasons 40 students (50%) prefer the choice others which means they want more activities should be provided at the Pre-reading stage 2.5.2 Data analysis of the teachers’ survey questionnaires Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 33 2.5.2.1 Teachers’ attitude towards the reading texts in the textbook and towards the Pre-reading activities (Questions and 2) Option Question A B 10% 50% C 10% 30% 30% 10% D 50% 10% Table 4: Teachers’ attitude towards reading texts and Pre-reading activities Question1: What you think about the texts in the textbook More Reading Power? A interesting: 10% B suitable: 10% C difficult: 30% D boring: 50% Question 2: What you often to start a reading lesson? A present some new words in the text: 50% B give a brief introduction to the text: 30% C organize some other lead-in activities to the text: 10% D nothing: 10% The score of the question in table above shows the teachers’ attitude towards the reading texts in the textbook they are teaching and the things they often to create their students’ interest and motivation before reading Generally speaking, most of them have negative attitude towards pre-reading activities introduced in the textbook That is why for the first question about their comments on the reading texts in More Reading Power, a great number of the teachers, which accounts for 50% suppose that the reading texts are boring, 12 of them (30%) even think that they are difficult Only of them- which make up 20% in total, think that they are suitable and interesting to teach May be because the topic of some reading texts is unfamiliar and not interesting or they may contains too many new words that require much time to look them up in the dictionary As the result, the preparation for the lesson sometimes is time-consuming Question is about the activities that the teachers often to motivate students before a reading lesson In general, most of the teachers are well-aware that these activities are crucial important and necessary for both the teachers and the students since they help the students focus on the reading text immediately at the beginning of the lesson Replying to this question, teachers (30%) say that they often give a brief introduction to the text as they could save time to lead their students directly to the reading text’s requirements, or Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 34 they are worried that without which the students are not well-informed and might get confused when dealing with the reading text Surprisingly, 15 teachers (50%) state that they often present some new words in the text as they suppose that these words may become an obstacle that causes difficulty to the students in understanding the text and carrying out the tasks that followed Other teachers (10%) say that they often organize some other lead-in activities (such as providing some lead-in questions, using visual aids, etc,.) to the text in order to create the students’ interest According to them, by giving some lead-in questions to the text, their students find it easier to understand and they can better concentrate on it as they read When the author had an informal interview with those teachers about the activities they often used, she found that the activities which were mostly employed by the teachers were using pre-reading questions to introduce the topic of the text, making students predict the content before reading, etc However, there are still teachers (10%) claim that they nothing before a reading text, these teachers explain that there is no time for these activities, and that their students’ level is already at the intermediate, they understand thoroughly what they have to do, and that there is no need to waste time on unnecessary activities They want their students to read the text at once and to exploit the text themselves before checking for the feedback later Question is aimed at finding out what the teachers think about the role of the Prereading activities 80% 70% 26.7% 3.3% A B C Chart 4: Teachers’ attitude towards the role of Pre-reading activities A very important: 26.7% B important: 70% C not important at all: 3.3% Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 35 It can be seen form the chart above that most of the teachers (70%) are aware of the importance of Pre-reading activities Other teachers which account for (26.7%) even think that these activities are very important and necessary to be employed at the first stage of every single reading lesson However, one teacher (3.3%) still claims that the activities are not important at all, that indicates she does not recognize the importance of motivation in a reading lesson so she often asks students to read the text and carry out the tasks at once Question is designed to explore the teachers’ frequency of using Pre-reading activities in a reading lesson When answering to the question (How often you use pre-reading activities in a reading lesson?) The researcher realizes that about 30% of the teachers under investigation often use pre-reading activities to start the lesson These activities are even always used by other teachers (10%) and the rest portion which makes up 60% of the population state that they sometimes employ them at the beginning of the lesson 2.5.2.2 Teachers’ purposes and difficulties in applying Pre-reading activities in teaching reading Question concentrates on exploring the teachers’ purposes of using Pre-reading activities in a reading lesson The researcher has the feedback to be shown in the following table: Purposes Strongly agree 70% 40% A to increase the students’ motivation B to help students predict content of the text C to provide background knowledge on the topic of the text 30% D to teach new, difficult vocabulary or structures in the text 40% E others 30% Table 5: Teachers’ purposes of using Pre-reading activities Agree Not agree 30% 50% 0% 10% 50% 20% 40% 60% 20% 10% From the table, we realize that most teachers are highly appreciate the role of Prereading activities, that is why many of them (50%) agree that they use these activities in order to help students predict the content of the text or provide them with background knowledge on the topic of the texts There is an equal number (40%) between the teachers who strongly agree that Pre-reading activities can help them teach new, difficult vocabulary or structures to their students Surprisingly, 21 teachers (70%) even strongly Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 36 agree that these activities are able to increase their students’ motivation before reading Besides, 18 teachers (60%) agree that they use the Pre-reading activities not only to serve these purposes but also other ones When the researcher has an informal talk with them, they explain that these activities help them to draw students’ attention and can get them involve in the text The portion of disagreeing is very modest, ranged from 0% to 20% Question is designed to find out the difficulties the teachers have to cope with when applying the Pre-reading activities in their teaching situation 100% 70% 60% 50% 30% A B C D Chart 5: Teachers’ difficulties in applying Pre-reading activities A designing them is time–consuming (70%) B designing them is difficult (60%) C sometimes the activities can not motivate the students (30%) D handling them sometimes is out of control (50%) Most of the teachers at the MSA agree that Pre-reading activities provide many advantages in warming up the students before reading However, 70% of them have to admit that designing these activities is time-consuming, and 60% find this work difficult, it requires a great effort form the teachers if they wish this activities work well in their real teaching situation Half of them (50%) claim that handling these activities sometimes is out of control, since they occupy much time or when carrying out the games the students may cause noise that affect the surrounding Some teachers (30%) state that they usually apply Pre-reading activities, but sometimes these activities can not motivate their students It can be understood that these activities are not of the students’ interest or the way the teachers use to introduce them is not clear or persuasive enough Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 37 2.5.2.3 Teachers’ comments on the Pre-reading activities in the textbook and their suggestions for future improvement Question is designed to find out the teachers’ comments on the Pre-reading activities in the textbook More Reading Power which they are currently teaching at the MSA 60% 40% 27% 20% 13% A B C D Chart 6: Teachers’ comments on the Pre-reading activities in the textbook A interesting 20% B unsuitable for the students’ interest 40% C ineffective in motivating the students 27% D unable to enhance the students’ motivation for reading 13% From the data showed in chart 6, we learn something about the teachers’ comments on the Pre-reading activities available in the textbook In general, most of them are not in favor of these activities The biggest portion (40%) of the teachers think that the Prereading activities in the textbook are unsuitable for the students’ interest, only of them (20%) suppose that they are interesting which means that these teachers often take a lot of advantages from the Pre-reading activities and are successful in exploiting them in teaching reading to the students Meanwhile, teachers (27%) comment that these activities are ineffective in motivating their students at the first stage of the reading lesson Four teachers (13%) complain about the Pre-reading activities in the book are poor and sometimes rather boring Therefore, they are unable to enhance the students’ motivation and encourage them to read and complete the tasks followed The purpose of question is to find out the teachers’ suggestions and recommendation on the Pre-reading activities that can be added to improve the reading lesson in general and the first stage of the lesson in particular Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 38 Most of the reading lessons in the textbook include Pre-reading activities of some kinds However, many teachers remarked that these activities were boring, poor and repetitive, since they were mainly followed the same types of activities such as: providing pre-reading questions; giving brief introduction to the text before asking the students to practice, it is also the main reason why some of the teachers chose choice D for question Therefore, when answered question (In your opinion, what should be done at prereading stage in order to make a reading lesson more interesting) None of them chose choice D (nothing, there is no need) It can be inferred that all of them discovered the drawback of the textbook they are teaching, and were willing to provide suggestions to improve these weaknesses Based on the selection of choices A, B, and C all of them suggested that more various kinds of Pre-reading activities should be added and more activities that are of the students’ interest should be provided 2.5.3 Data analysis of the class observations The author of the study randomly chose classes (16A and 5AD4) with different teachers to observe The researcher watched and followed all the procedures and activities the teachers and the students were performing in the real classroom settings, which enabled her to elicit reliable data The first thing she noticed was that all these teachers used some lead-in activities at the Pre-reading stage This proved that the teachers were highly appreciated the impact of these activities to the students’ motivation The observation was carried out two times at two different units and with different teachers in these classes Each lesson lasted 40 minutes; the researcher provided a checklist for her observation including the students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities, their involvement in the activity and their interaction with each other while completing the tasks She also observed the students’ reactions to Pre-reading activities employed in the lesson as well as their preferences for them The first observation took place in class 16A with Unit 1-Part Four, the reading texts in this unit are all about the Hawaiian Islands such as Water Sports in Hawaii, and Natural Disasters in Hawaii and Hawaiian Traditions, etc, Hawaii nowadays, in fact, rather familiar to many students, however, many of them are still lack information about this name Therefore, the teacher employed the techniques of using visual aids (photos) as well as provided some Pre-reading questions related to Hawaii and Water Sports in Hawaii asked students to work in groups to discuss the pictures and teacher’s questions The Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 39 teacher checked for the feedback with the whole class, these activities lasted in 15 minutes From the researcher’ observation, the students were willing to take part in teacher’s activities and eager to read the text to get more information about Hawaii The second observation was taken in class 5AD4 with Unit 3, in this lesson the students read about another topic, the reading texts are about Global Issues such as the Global Warming, Population Explosion, and the Disappearance of some Species The purpose of choosing this lesson is that the researcher would like to observe how the teacher deal with long reading texts and what activities the teacher used at the Pre-reading stage to motivate students The teacher was quite well-prepared for the Pre-reading activities and used up 15 minutes to exploit them First of all, she introduced the topic of the reading text Then, she divided students into groups to brainstorm the words or ideas related to the topic of the lesson she had introduced beforehand Next, the teacher provided some lead-in questions, asked the students to discuss in pairs before checking for the feedback with the whole class In general, the observations help the researcher confirm the fact that Pre-reading activities applied by the teachers have a great impact to students’ motivation before they start reading However, the activities employed by the teachers were not varied since they seem to prefer using pre-reading questions and giving introduction 2.6 Summary Chapter has presented the situation of the study, in which the author would like to focus on the setting, the reading material, and the characteristics of the students and teachers participating in the study Besides, the contents and the aims of two survey questionnaires and class observation are also presented in this chapter The data analysis from the questionnaires and class observations help the author have an overview of teaching and learning reading at MSA With more details about students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards Pre-reading activities, students’ preferences for these activities as well as students’ and teachers’ comments on Pre-reading activities in the textbook are also investigated The following chapter will deal with major findings and suggestions of some possible Pre-reading activities applied to teach More Reading Power to the second-year English students at the MSA Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 40 Chapter Major findings and suggestions of some possible Pre reading activities applied to teach More Reading Power to the Second-year English Majors at the MSA 3.1 Major findings 3.1.1 The role of using Pre-reading activities to the Second-year English Majors at the MSA The findings of this study showed that that both teachers and students at the MSA are highly appreciated the important role of Pre-reading activities For the teachers, the application of Pre-reading activities enables them to activate students’ existing knowledge, to teach more words as well as to arouse students’ motivation in reading to the texts On the other hand, for the students, the Pre-reading activities are obviously useful since they are more motivated, they can understand the texts better while reading and the most important thing is that these activities help them improve their reading skills as well 3.1.2 Frequency of using Pre-reading activities in reading lessons As mentioned above, nearly all the teachers in the study are aware of the importance of the Pre-reading activities, so they usually employ these activities with the hope to motivating students as well as helping them deal with the reading texts more easily From the teachers’ and students’ survey questionnaires, the author finds out the order of frequency for using Pre-reading activities in a reading lesson at the MSA * The most frequently used activities: - explaining the instructions of the text - using pre-reading questions - making students predict the content of the text Actually, the first and the second activities are regarded as traditional ones and they are mostly employed in every reading lesson by the teachers What is more, it does not take the teachers much time to design or prepare Making students predict the content of the text is another familiar activity According to the teachers, this activity encourages students to use their existing background knowledge and vocabulary to guest the content and incidents that may be occurred in the new reading text It also helps students more concentrating in the coming stages * The activities that are sometimes used: - pre-teaching new vocabulary - giving reading task to students Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 41 Pre-teaching new vocabulary in a reading text is a popular activity that sometimes provided by the teachers since they considered words and structures are the key roles in helping students avoid confusion or misunderstanding Moreover, this activity is very useful for the second year-students at the MSA because many of them consider the lack of vocabulary is a great barrier which makes it difficult for them to read and comprehend the reading text As mentioned above, sometimes teachers give the reading task without warming them up by using any Pre-reading activities The reason to this may be because they suppose that their students are at their intermediate level, they know how to, so there is no need to waste time on unnecessary activities, just only let them read the text and exploit it themselves * The activities that are rarely used: - using games to introduce the text - using visual aids to introduce the text All students of the second-year at the MSA are in their teens or early twenties, so perhaps they still enjoy taking part in what are called “just for fun” activities like taking part in game or enjoying visual aids which were provided by the teachers However, these activities need careful preparation and time consuming, so the fact that they are rarely used in reading lessons is understandable 3.1.3 Students’ preferences for Pre-reading activities It is noticeable that students’ preferences for Pre-reading activities differ from what the teachers often in reading lessons As mentioned in chapter 2, many students enjoy such activities as using games or using visual aids to introduce the text, meanwhile, they are sometimes or even rarely used by the teachers In fact, almost the teachers at the MSA are well aware that these activities are motivational ones However, it is obvious that preparing visual aids or designing games possibly are tough for a lot of teachers Fortunately, both students and teachers share the same view in using such pre-reading activities as providing pre-reading questions and giving brief introduction to the text Perhaps they all find these activities interesting and motivational 3.1.4 Students’ preferences for participating in Pre-reading activities From the data collected in chapter the researcher realized that a large number of students enjoy working in groups, actually, group-work encourages students to display their existing knowledge to share experience together However, more students prefer working in pairs, since doing pair-work provides them more time as well as more Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 42 opportunities What is more, pair-work also enables them to express their point of view more freely in non-threatening environment 3.1.5 Teachers’ difficulties in designing and applying the Pre-reading activities As mentioned in chapter 2, many reading lessons in More Reading Power include Pre-reading activities However, these activities are boring and repetitive so the teachers always add more activities for each lesson to arouse the students’ motivation Obviously, to create a motivated atmosphere for the students, teachers should employ appropriate activities or the activities of their interest Based on the data collected from the survey questionnaire for the students the researcher discovered that majority students are in favor of such activities as using games and visual aids However, most of the teachers have to admit that designing these activities is difficult and time-consuming It requires a great effort if they wish these activities work well in their real teaching situation Besides, handling these activities sometimes is out of control because they often occupy much time and they may cause noise to the surrounding environment 3.1.6 Teachers’ and students’ comments on Pre-reading activities available in the textbook More Reading Power From the data collected in the previous chapter, the author found out that almost the students and the teachers in the study are not in favor of the Pre-reading activities available in the textbook they are using currently In general, most of them comment that these activities are not suitable for their teaching and learning reading, some of them even suppose that these activities are boring According to them, these activities are poor, repetitive, and sometimes rather boring Therefore, they all think that more activities should be added at the Pre-reading stage 3.2 Suggestions of some possible Pre-reading activities applied to teach More Reading Power to the Second-year English Majors at the MSA For developing skills to the second year students at the MSA, reading comprehension is one of the most difficult but important academic tasks facing second year students at intermediate level To improve reading skills can positive impact many aspects of second year students’ performance Disinterest in reading may result in poor reading comprehension, creating students’ interest, enhancing their motivation and improving their concentration in the textbook More Reading Power are indispensable steps In this study, the researcher offers several suggestions for the teachers to create their students’ interest, to enhance their motivation as well as their concentration before reading Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 43 3.2.1 Creating Interest and Enhancing Motivation Ways for creating interest and enhancing motivation for the students at the MSA will vary significantly according to personal preferences, experiences, background, and subject matter For second-year students of English at the MSA it would be helpful to suggest some ways for creating the students’ interest and enhancing their motivation before reading Group discussion is an activity that can be appropriate for situations in which texts are difficult, sometimes contain unfamiliar concepts or words that may be not exist in the students’ minds Group students in three or four with an efficient reader to create an exciting reading atmosphere since reading alone is conventional and sometimes rather boring and not effective 3.2.2 Using visual aids It is very important for the readers to have something to look at is eye-caching and relevant to the task in hand There are many advantages of using visual aids in a reading lesson that the teacher can use First of all, using visual aids can focus attention on meaning and help to make the language, using visual aids in the class in general and in the reading lesson in particular can bring students back to real life Secondly, having something to look at can keep the students’ attention and make the class more alive and interesting Moreover, using visual aids at pre-reading stage can help the teacher much in presenting new words or introducing a topic, as part of language practice, and when reviewing language that has been presented earlier Good visual aids are not just used once, but again and again and can be shared by different teachers and with different groups of students 3.2.3 Pre- questioning Pre-questioning involves presenting students with a set of written questions (Royer et al., 1983) or having students generate their own questions on the topic of the reading passage (Taglieber et.al., 1983) The aim of this activity is to motivate students to read what follows for a purpose, that is, to gain the requisite information to answer the question (Carrell, 1988:247) Being motivated is one of the most important factors that can help students in the process of reading “The more students look forward to reading and anticipate in their minds what the text could hold in store for them, the easier it will be to grasp the main points of the passage” (Grellet 1981:62) Providing pre-reading questions also “functions to get students to predict within a context area what the text will be about” before studying the text (Carrell 1988:247) They make students “aware of what they wish to learn about the topic” (Grellet 1981:62), since these questions set purposes for reading Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 44 3.2.4 Brainstorming One very popular kind of Pre-reading activities is “Brainstorming.” Students are given a particular key word or key concept and then invited to call out words and concepts they personally associate with the key words or words provided by the teacher It has many advantages, since it requires little teacher preparation, allows learners freedom to bring their own prior knowledge and opinions to bear on a particular topic, and involves the whole class No one need feel threatened when any bid is acceptable and can be added to the framework The results of this kind of activity resemble what has been called “semantic mapping” (Wallace 1993:92) 3.2.5 Role- playing Role-play is a way of bringingsituation from real life into classroom When the teacher carries out role-play, he or she asks the students to imagine themselves to be a farmer, a doctor, a teacher or a scientist, etc, In general, role-play increases motivation, it gives students a chance to use the language in new contexts and for new topics The students can imagine themselves in defferent situations when they role-play In addition, by using role-play in the class, the teachers is building on something that the students naturally enjoy, because through the role-play, the students can express their own natural expressions, intornations and gestures as well 3.3 Summary Chapter has presented the author’ major findings about students’ attitudes towards Pre-reading activities, students’ preferences for these activities, teachers’ difficulties when designing and applying Pre-reading activities as well as students’ and teachers’ comments on Pre-reading activities in textbook More Reading Power More importantly, these findings enable the researcher to provide suggestions on some possible Pre-reading activities which are thought to be appropriate for motivating students at the first stage of the reading lesson in particular, and for developing reading skills to the second year students of English at the MSA in general In a single lesson, it is not possible for the teacher to use all these suggested activities presented in this chapter, therefore, the teacher should choose different activities for different reading lessons with different purposes It is hoped that with the application of this advice, the teachers can help the students at the MSA learn the textbook More Reading Power more effectively Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com 45 PART C: CONCLUSION Summary of the study This study was conducted with the hope to find out the role of Pre-reading activities to second-year students’ motivation in reading at the MSA It is obvious from the previous chapters that the importance of reading in foreign language learning is undeniable and appropriate techniques are also important to improve the students’ reading abilities As the result, the suggestions of several appropriate activities to help second-year students better in their reading skills at the MSA appears to be necessary This study entitled “A study on possible effective Pre-reading activities to improve reading skills for the 2nd-year English majors at the Military Science Academy” consists of three parts: the introduction, the development, and the conclusion The first part presents the rationale and scope of the study, aims, methods, significance, and the design of the study The second part-development includes three chapters: Chapter 1-theoretical background reviews the relevant literature on reading and reading comprehension Besides, concepts and ideas about motivation in general and in second language learning in particular have been mentioned Moreover, the importance of motivation, the factors affecting the students’ motivation in learning reading skill as well as definitions and the importance of Pre-reading activities have also been reviewed in this chapter Chapter 2-the study presents the situation of the study, in which the author would like to focus on the setting, the reading material, and the characteristics of the students and teachers participating in the study The data analysis based on the questionnaires for the teachers and the students as well as class observations are also presented in this chapter Chapter deals with major findings through data analysis in chapter In addition, the author provides suggestions of some possible Pre-reading activities which can be applied to teach More Reading Power to the second-year English students at the MSA The last part of the study-conclusion, in which the limitations and suggestions for further study are presented Limitations and suggestions for further study In most research projects, limitations are inevitable The study presented in this thesis is of no exception Due to the shortage of time and knowledge, the study can not cover all the factors affecting the students’ motivation in learning reading at the MSA This study merely focuses on motivational activities for the Pre-reading stage to the second-year students major of English at the MSA Thus, further study on motivational while-reading and post-reading activities for the second-year students and for the students of other years seem to be of great usefulness Kho tài liệu freeKetnooi.com [...]... and what techniques the teachers used at the pre -reading stage to motivate students in reading these texts 2.5 Data analysis This part of the thesis is the treatment of all data collected from the survey questionnaires conducted on 80 second year students and 30 teachers of English at the MSA as well as from the author’s observation in three classes The analysis of the data is presented in 2 parts The. .. Previewing and Predicting make easier to see what information they already know about what they read the passage Previewing and Predicting are considered to be essential skills for a good reader that help students predict or make some educated guesses about what is in the passage These reading skills also encourage students to get some ideas about what they will read process the information more quickly and... dictionary As the result, the preparation for the lesson sometimes is time-consuming Question 2 is about the activities that the teachers often do to motivate students before a reading lesson In general, most of the teachers are well-aware that these activities are crucial important and necessary for both the teachers and the students since they help the students focus on the reading text immediately at the. .. reading and vocabulary knowledge, because while reading, the readers know most of the words in the text already, and they can also determine the meaning of many of the unfamiliar words from the contexts Therefore, the best way to acquire a large vocabulary is to read It is understandable that anyone who has a large vocabulary is usually a good reader Besides, Richard (1993: 4) also stated that reading. .. Global Situational, and Tasks Among them, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations have an important part in classroom motivation and they are partially accessible to teacher influence * Intrinsic Motivation (IM) According to Wlodkowsk (1991) intrinsic motivation refers to “motivation to engage in an activity for its own sake” Sharing the same point, Reeve (1996) defines that intrinsic motivation “is the natural... the reading lesson can promote interaction between the reader and the text Ur (1996) emphasises that the aim of Pre -reading activities is to provide anticipation and activate reader in the next stages of the reading process The purpose of using these activities is to develop a better self-awareness of the relationship between the reader’s meaning and the author’s meaning; and to help readers understand... intensively To understand a text, these types of reading are not used separately but in a combination altogether 1.3 Teaching and learning reading skills 1.3.1 The importance of reading in foreign language learning In the process of teaching and learning a second or foreign language, the teaching and learning of reading are always received much attention, since it is regarded as one of the most important major... 25 to 45 and 110 second-year students and they are learning the text book More Reading Power The researcher invited 30 teachers (about 67% of the population), they all have Diploma Degree in English and twenty of them have M .A Degree in Education, Linguistics, or International Relations and another one has Ph.D Degree in Linguistics The reason for choosing them was that all of them were teaching at the. .. involvement Researchers, who study on reading, recognize that in order to create lifelong readers, endowing the learners with proficient reading are not enough They also need to have internalized motivation Besides, reading material is another important factor that greatly influences the students’ motivation in a reading lesson First of all, if the reading material is interesting and relevant to the students,... obvious that the students are aware of the importance of these activities and they regard them as inevitable factor in almost reading lessons Nearly 25% of the students report that they are asked to read the text without preparation This may due to the teachers’ own ways of teaching or because of the time constraint 2.5.1.2 Students’ preferences for Pre -reading activities Based on the students answer to question